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Vale of the White Horse
Topic Started: 5 Jan 2010, 13:03 (19,280 Views)
Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
If they hadn't been sitting in a hall servants frequented, he might have done a lot more than just kissing. A shame, really. Rufus pulled back when Essylt didn't react. 'Give my regards to Morcant,' he said with a smile just this side of malicious.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
If there was a pool of falling force inside of her, now it felt like he had given her a blow there. She felt her heart thump against her chest as if it wanted to push through the bones and skin, and couldn’t utter a word, though her lips were searching for one. Forget about all the information. She was no match for him and she suddenly didn’t want to be anymore. Essylt swallowed, rising from the bench. ‘That was cruel.’
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
'That was the idea,' he said lightly.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
The confusion had washed over her, but now it retreated like the tide retreats into the oceans. Essylt jaw trembled as she stuck it forward, lifting her eyes to meet his gaze directly. ‘If I find that you hurt him, even just a little,’ she said softly but with a tremble in her voice that was not from fear, ‘and I do not mean merely physically – this,’ she touched her fingertips to his cheek and let a cobweb of ice bloom and fade like a throb of the heart, ‘is finished.’
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
He laughed softly, though it did take him most of his self-control not to stiffen or in any way react to her icy touch. 'Oh, I wouldn't dream of it. Promises, you see. Contrary to popular belief, I do keep them.'
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
Her eyes ran up and down over his person. ‘Using me to toy with what he feels is hovering very close to the edge,’ she told him tensely. That laugh of his had brought goose bumps all over her arms, and she couldn’t tell if that was from fear or from anger.
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
'But I'm not using you,' he said and got up as well, smiling down on her still. 'If this hurts Morcant, then perhaps he should do something about his feelings, wouldn't you say?'
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
‘Like what?’ she hissed through her teeth. She didn't move back when he rose. ‘You just said the idea was to be cruel.’
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
'Like kissing you as I just did,' he answered. 'That, at least, was not cruel. Or you would have pulled away, is my guess.'
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
He did. She nearly said it, but instead pressed her lips together hard for a moment. Her head was spinning. ‘You’re just too hard for me to withstand, aren’t you.’
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
'I can only try.' Rufus licked his lips and gave a little snort. After all, she had been very nearly like soft wax in his hands on the night he'd visited her in her room. He would bet half of his unfluence in Rome on that she secretly wanted him to finish what they'd started.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
Her hand itched to slap him. She glanced around. There were not much people in the hall, but the space was too open. Only one narrow corridor left of her, hardly lit. It seemed to lead only to a storage room. What if she brought him in there and pressed her icing hand against his chest? All the danger, all of the shadows that he cast about him would end at once. No! are you mad? I musn’t. She stepped back involuntarily.
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
'Well, Essylt, I believe we both have other things to do now. It was a pleasure talking to you again.' Rufus smiled faintly. 'Have a safe trip, I really would like to see you and Morcant back in one piece.'
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
'Thank you.' She was on the verge of something else - something much darker, but kept it back. 'Goodbye, Rufus.'
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
His smile widened. There was something in her eyes that he hadn't seen before. It was interesting. Rufus nodded at her before turning around. Time to get back to gathering information. It was just that he felt more like other things. Perhaps he could waylay one of the maids...
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
It was just like her journey to Caer March the first time, Briallen thought. Her back ached from riding the few hours they had when daylight was grey over the earth, and even some of the lengthening hours where twilight was halfway of letting the night spread out. The way had not eased itself before them. In the morning there was snow. Sometimes it melted; other times it glistened for as long as the sun was out. This made crossing difficult. She rode just behind Braegne, the reins of her horse loose as it sought his way through a small crevice. The stream that ran over the horse’s feet was not deep, but it was cold and unpredictably fierce. She released her tense breath when they clambered to the other side. The head of the men-at-arms held up a hand. ‘We rest here for tonight!’
She was glad. They found a small glade with elm trees circling around like standing stones. Briallen passed a hand over her face.
‘You must get rest,’ Braegne said, coming up from behind her and wrapping an extra cloak around her shoulders. Briallen felt the warmth immediately. It comforted her weary muscles a little. ‘Yes, I’m worn out.’
As some men made a fire, the other men set up a tent for her. She shared it with her maid, as traveling light had meant that they could not afford another tent. Braegne went over to the flames with a kettle and a pot, pouring something in it. Briallen braided her hair again. The locks felt greasy. There was a little snow in there, like a white crown. And she had to relieve herself badly.
‘Lady,’ one of the men called after her, ‘Don’t move too far!’
‘No, no,’ she muttered, distancing herself from the circle of fire. And just in case, there was a dagger strapped to her girdle all times. Briallen shivered with her pulled-up skirt and quickly straightened up again. Even from here she could still see glow of their campfire, casting warm highlights on the dark figures of trees and many ferns, foliages, entangled and wild. But it was funny….something on the other side of her made just a flicker. The gleaming of fireflies? She peered into the darkness. Bopping up and down, she thought the things were getting closer, but not too close. At a distance of four paces, they lingered. But there was a hint of music, like the scent of thyme on a summer’s day. She turned her head, hearing only talking from the campfire. With a dry mouth she kept still. Wayland’s Smithy had been like this, only then she had welcomed it. To simply wander into the realm of the Good Folk was a terrifying thing. She could not do it. With a heart beating so wild that she nearly lost the melody that floated towards her, Briallen spun around. Ferns lashed against the hem of her tunic; it was difficult to move forward, but the path was still right here.
She walked and walked, pushing the forest out of her way. Surely she hadn’t gone that far! And the light, the real light that the campfire had shed moments ago, where had it gone to? ‘Oh, mother Epona,’ she whispered, brushing the hair from the sweating brow. There was a glade ahead of her. It looked like their own, only with large oaks in a half moon, a fire smoldering in the ashes and only a few dark creatures crouched close to it. She couldn’t even see their forms very well, only that each of them was small. They could be rocks, they way they held themselves.
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
He leaned against the window, looking out over the settlement nestled against the hill. Plumes of smoke rose into a sky that was already clouded with grey. It wasn't the best of views, but he cherished it simply because he could, as a human. The beast inside had left him alone for the past couple of hours, but at first he had suffered from a terrible headache. Now, with the fresh air, he felt better. He'd tied the piece of cloth to the shutter and watched it flap in the wind. Eiluned didn't come, though. Perhaps she was busy. Tudwrig pulled a stool towards the window and sat down, his eyes fixed on the horizon. If wanting was enough, Briallen would come cresting that hill right now. The scent of snow that hung in the air had him worried. What if she got surprised on her way back? He shook his head. Even if she did, he'd send enough men with her to keep her safe. Nothing would happen, and she'd be back before he knew it.

Eiluned only came to open his door when the sun had set. Before he did anything else, he spent time catching up on what had happened in his abscence, so to say. When he felt that he knew everything he should, he sat down to have some food. The table, the whole main hall, was empty without Briallen. And with Gwenllian and Rhywallon gone too, there was no one to keep him company but the servants and Eiluned. His caer seemed bleak and desolate to him now. Tudwrig poked his food without any real appetite, and pushed his plate away shortly after. At least the Roman wasn't there to bother him. He'd probably be tempted to stab his knife into the man's eye. Rubbing his temples, he leaned back in his chair and moodily stared at the crackling hearth.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
She hovered between the oaks, on the edge of the circle. Her heart was still only increasing in beat. There would probably be no easy way out, if they had changed the short path back to the party. Her lips were trembling, just as her hands.
One of the creatures stirred. It remained as obscured as before, but she had a feeling that they had noticed her.
‘You, human girl.’ The voice sounded like earth. ‘Stir up our fire, will you not?’
She looked from the creatures to the trees, feeling mildly astounded. Stepping forward seemed like a leap into a dangerous sort of scheme. ‘Surely you have not brought me here to make fires?’
More sounds. Was it laughing, of a disapproving grumble? ‘Stir up the fire and sit yourself with us.’
‘Right.’ She swallowed her fear back and approached. Crouching down low, she blew into the ashes and poked it. The flames rose up. ‘I must return to my people.’
One of the beings moved again. She glanced at it. There was a texture of moist earth and tree roots on him. ‘Tell us, girl – you speak of returning to your people, yet why have you abandoned your husband?’
‘What?’ She stiffened in her gesture of getting up; her back straightened. ‘I did not abandon Tudwrig!’
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
The great hall was too empty. Tudwrig got up and walked to the antechambre where Briallen had stored the tapestries just before her departure. He lifted the edge of one of them, folding it open. The familiar stiches gleamed in what little light there was in the room, and for a moment he felt like that little boy who could sit staring at these wall hangings for hours on end again.
'What is it you want to tell us?' The tapestry didn't answer, of course. What did he expect, anyway? One of the Fair Folk to pop out of the stitched surroundings, telling him that he'd suffered long enough and that his torment was at an end? That was a ridiculous thing to hope for, he knew. Tudwrig dug his fingers into the edges, squeezing it. If there was a way to get rid of the curse, there would be a way to find it. With a sigh, he let go of the tapestry and put it back with its sibling.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
‘Did the human child not promise to make the land better?’ one of the stone creatures muttered, gently rocking back and forth. ‘Heal the chieftain and heal the land. That is what she pledged to do.’
‘Well – I…’ Briallen searched for words, not able to decide between fear and indignation. ‘I have only been gone to visit my family.’
‘Family,’ one of them repeated. ‘You belong to the Vale now.’
‘Yes,’ she said, and was surprised at how right this felt ‘And I’m going back. So don’t tell me I’ve abandoned Tudwrig! And what I said was that I would try. Try to heal the land and keep my promise to your kind. But you have not told me how I should work this out! We’re struggling hard to maintain some authority at least, but –’
‘No struggles will do good,’ the third being rasped. Like the other, it rocked towards the flames and back as it spoke. Briallen shut her mouth, turning her eyes on him. ‘No human politics or folly. We weave not such things.’
She said nothing.
‘What we weave are threads of another kind,’ explained the other, the one closest to her. ‘Like things of water and currents, of riverbanks and stones.’
Much like their own essence, she thought. ‘I don’t understand. I cannot work like you do. You must tell me outright or I will probably fail.’
‘We tell you,’ the third creature, oval like a pebble, said. ‘You listen. But if you listen not well, fail you will.’
‘I –’ she glanced over her shoulder, but the half moon of trees revealed nothing of her own camp. Would they notice her missing? ‘Alright. I’ll listen very well.’
‘Weaving, patching, we do it like stories. You know stories, Briallen of the Vale of the White Horse. Tell us one.’
‘Tell you a story?’ she echoed. ‘I don’t think…why?’
‘You have not told stories since a long time,’ the creatures said. He sounded as though he were contemplating it, finding it sad. ‘Now you will, and in return receive a story from us. Accept it.’
She hesitated another moment. It’d be more convenient if they simply told her what they expected her to do, surely? Briallen licked her lips. The Good Folk were not quite like her own race, after all. If they told her to listen, a lesson was to be learned. She only hoped she’d understand half of it. ‘Very well. A girl who found herself taken away from all that she had known before, traveled this very same road from Gwynedd to a lonely caer. She was to meet a husband whom she had never seen before. Weary from travel, she and her escort arrived in the sweet dales of what is called the Vale of the White Horse, for there was a magnificent hill figure; a horse, pure as white moonshine, cantering towards the Caer March, to which it belonged. In the weeks after her arrival in this strange, new home, this girl found both delight and nightmare. Delight, for the chieftain was kind and becoming. She liked how his hair tumbled before his eyes in dark tresses. The manner of his face was really quite pleasing to her, though his complexion was unusually pale. To her dismay she found that the benign new husband suffered from an illness that allowed him no freedom to love her in the way she quickly grew to yearn for. But it was within this uneasy new love that she discovered the darkest secret; the horrible shadow that had swallowed two previous young brides and might well claim her own live within days. Her lovely young man was a monster; a beast that raved and paced his lonely rooms, sometimes for days. The girl escaped him one time, but was frightened beyond reasonable thought. It seemed to her that she could not be the bride of a monster. Would she bed a beast like that? Her good father, who had died, and her stern uncle, would surely not allow such a hideous thing! But with her mind set on leaving, the girl was faced with yet another trial. Strangers from a far empire came up to the small caer and they demanded to be received at once. Their leader was a man of an unlikable character, with an eagle’s nose over which he grazed the people he stared at as though he could literally cut wounds in their skin. With his high demands for shelter, food supplies and the building of a new settlement for his own people, the girl could not possibly leave her husband who, when not beast, was soft and sad and altogether the man she wished to have as her lord. And so, she stayed by his side for love and loyalty’s sake. And the longer she remained in Caer March, the more she grew to love closed people that lived there, and the landscape became the lands where she felt her children should live – though through the curse, she and her man did not seem able to make love as two married people should. It was also for love that she made a silent promise to her husband that she would seek a way to deliver him from the painful binds that tied him to the shape of a beast so often, and tortured both of their dreams with sorrow and fear. But how the curse was cast, or why it had befallen her own man, who seemed to be so kind and undeserving, she could not find out.’ Briallen’s mouth had become dry. She looked about, from stone creature to creature, all obscured by she shadows and spooky highlights of the campfire.
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
The hallways were just as silent as the great hall and the antechambre both had been, despite the servants scurrying around. Tudwrig walked towards the courtyard. He wanted to be outside after so many days - though he didn't know exactly how many - of being locked up. Most of the workshops were empty, but sounds of wood being chiselled into shape came from one of them. It was a feverish sort of sound, as if the man working on it was in a hurry to get it finished before he returned home. Tudwrig stood listening to it until it stopped, then he walked towards the workshop and peered inside. The carpenter inside was just wiping the sweat off his brow when he noticed him. Tudwrig drew up a smile, studying the man's features. 'I don't think I've seen you before?'
'I've only just come into your service, my lord,' the man answered after a short silence. He was young, with an unreadable sort of face and heavily muscled arms. Tudwrig wondered if he'd been a carpenter all his life.
'That's right, Eiluned told me about you. I've seen your work, it is very good.'
The man nodded respectfully. 'I try my hardest, my lord.'
'What's your name?'
'Morcant, my lord.'
'And you live down in the settlement?' Tudwrig stepped inside the little workshop and sat down on a bench that looked as if it was just finished. It didn't move or give way at all when he sat down on it, nor did it creak. The man named Morcant put his tools down and brushed some woodchips away.
'Yes.'
He stretched his legs out in front of him. 'Shouldn't you be on your way back home, then?'
Morcant seemed to hesitate for a moment. 'I wanted to finish this piece before I - that is, before I finish up for the day.'
There was something not quite right with that statement, Tudwrig thought. This Morcant was the sort of man he could grow to like, he was sure, and he definitely handled his tools in such a professional way there could be no doubt he was a true craftsman. 'Your sense of responsibility is to be commented, but I think you should get a decent night's rest. That chest, is it? - you can finish it tomorrow just as well as you could tonight.' He got up from the bench and decided to go to Eiluned and tell her that he wanted this bench finished and decorated, fine enough to be a gift for Briallen on her return. Tudwrig smiled at Morcant, but the man himself had a slightly troubled expression on his face.
'I could, my lord. It's not that, I -'
'You what?' He raised his eyebrows. That man could probably knock down three men on his own with those powerful fists, yet he seemed rather shy about saying what he was thinking.
'It's my..wife, you see. She received word from back home that her brother is not doing well and she wishes to go there for a while. I can't leave her to go on her own, but I do not want to leave my job here either.'
'Because you need the pay?' Tudwrig finished for him when he fell silent. The man nodded, his jaw setting. Shrugging, Tudwrig made for the exit. 'I want to see a finished chest by morning, then. If you can manage that, work will be waiting for you on your return.'
He could hear how Morcant slowly released his breath. 'Thank you, my lord.'
Tudwrig didn't answer, but turned around and walked back across the courtyard. Whether it was the wood dust in the workshop or something else, he felt a headache coming up. There were still some things he needed to discuss with Eiluned before he retired to his room again, so he did not have time to lose.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
There was a spell of silence, but then one of the beings rocked back and forth again, like a cradle. He nearly toppled into the flames. Briallen took it for approval. ‘It is sad,’ he said. ‘The curse. Sickness. Undeserving, or not?’
The other creature muttered something incomprehensible, but the third one spoke: ‘It is not this man who deserves what is brought down upon him. We agreed on this, me and my kind. But others think that he must suffer through all his bloodlines. Perhaps it is good that you are not with child yet.’
Briallen blushed, wanting to protest, but only tightened her fingers in a fist. ‘He does not deserve it. I don’t know what his father or his father’s father has done, but Tudwrig is a good man.’
‘Not his father,’ the muttering one said. ‘Not his father’s father. But his kin line made the strangers welcome in our lands. For this, he suffers. And it will grow, then grow beyond borders still.’
She wasn’t sure if he meant the curse or the Roman invasion. It did not seem to matter. Briallen clutched her belly, where a sickening feeling started to spread. ‘How am I the one to stop this? Please, tell me, then!’
‘Perhaps it is not you,’ the same one murmured. ‘It might be she, who is half of our own blood.’
‘They have chosen her,’ the second being agreed. ‘But she can be good or she can be bad. We do not know. We cannot make her do our will; she is too much of our own for that.’ It nearly sounded as a sigh.
‘Who?’ Briallen asked confused. ‘What woman are you speaking of?’
‘She lives among you, but hides her true form,’ the first one said. ‘The girl of the owls. A fragile one; so fragile that her dark powers may break her shell soon, and leave her as nothing but an empty vessel.’
As if the fire had extinguished in a breeze, Briallen felt how the words brought shivers over her arms and back. ‘I don’t know anyone like that,’ she whispered.
‘You told the story well,’ the one that had nearly thrown himself into the fire said. ‘So we will tell you another story.’
‘Yes,’ murmured the second one, ‘stories of old ages. Stories of things to come. Stories of threads in the tapestry that may be torn out or unwound or woven into the greater pattern. We do not know. You must decide.’
‘Before the time of Briallen of the Vale of the White Horse,’ the first began, ‘but we assure you, it was in our time, when we felt freer to roam our own lands without the invaders who disgust us, in our time, one lonesome girl had been deprived of the gift of sight. Some blamed us, the Earth Kin; others blamed the newer ones, who came not from the earth but from beyond the seas, from a land called Éire. She rescued a small owl, which had been trapped and injured by a cruel hunter’s string and landed limply on her windowsill. There was a shepherd in the woods around her home, who herded the creatures of the forest. As a gift for her kindness to one of his own, he surrounded himself with moonlight and feathers to reward her with what she craved most; a life of freedom and sight. Now, sometimes our kind and yours find it in themselves to transcend the borders of blood and essence. They form a holy pair, if only for a short time, for such love is bound to break. A child was conceived, though the girl was said to have fled in despair when it was not welcomed by her family. And from her child, through a linked chain of generations and generations, too many to count, the girl of owls was born. When she looked into the water, she knew truth. When she loved, she loved with both the quality and destruction of our own blood. And when she feared and when she hated, she destroyed all that harbors human life in the vicinity. Scared by what she turned out to be, the girl fled from her home. One man, blinded by her beauty and frailty, followed her to the edge of his own safety, where he found he could no longer part from her and live. And here is the ending of the tale. The girl encountered an enemy so fierce that she could not face him and win. This man took all from her; her purity, her purpose to live. He was an invader, with the hair of a flame and the heart of darkness. He schemed until she was his, but the girl only broke when on the hill of the white horse he took the life of her beloved one; the man who had sworn to walk through fire on her behalf. All was destroyed but herself; she changed into an owl and passed the veil to the Otherworld without harm. But there is another ending of the story. It is this. The girl of owls was not the only one who held the power to heal the lands. She was like the wild stream, able to fertilize the lands and to flood it over with death in her wake. The other one was wiser and older. She loved like the girl of owls, but with a steady beat and not like wave upon wave. This girl had learned a song; it had been sung by child upon child in the lands of her new home, and it seemed like the earth itself sung it to the people. Do you remember the song, Briallen?’
‘Oh.’ She had tried to make sense of the story; so hard that it was not easy to remember what song they were telling her of. ‘You…you mean – the lullaby? The melody Gwenllian and I heard in Wayland’s Smithy, that is?’
‘Sing it for us, girl of the earth.’
‘Ah….’ She leaned forward, her elbows leaning on her knees. She had only heard the words once or maybe twice. They reminded her of the tapestry she was working on. She’d pick it up when she was back. It’d be a harder job to restore both wall hangings without the help of Gwenllian, but if she just steadily worked on, the work would end some day. ‘I think it went something like…Now from the east comes dawning….the light spreads everywhere…no, to all sides.’ She closed her eyes, thinking of the hill with the great white horse. There, she saw the stark lines of Caer March. Tudwrig’s lonely room was lit. She pictured him looking out over the hill and the mystifying Blowing Stone. ‘like newly roses budding
consoling us with light
The stones that will be singing
to let the morning wake
from other worlds, the bringing
of ceaseless morning-break…
And…and the morn, the stones blow
the sounds into the dales, low
to go beyond the veil
treading on holy grounds
to westward, holy vales.’

At the end of the song, she opened her eyes. The words tasted like honey on her lips. How odd. The creatures all made their approving, cradling gestures. ‘Now you know.’
‘Know?’ The sweet feeling was gone at once. ‘What? I don’t understand it at all!’
‘Then you are foolish,’ the first one said. ‘We do not hold you for a fool. No no. You will know. You will find. You will save us. Go home, Briallen of the Vale of the White Horse.’
‘But I…please, tell me. This song, what does it mean?’
A ripple of air went through the group of three beings. Was it a sigh? At least the third one said: ‘One more story, then.’
‘Yes,’ the second said, ‘one to go. One story of the land. Of the hills and rocks and brooks and woods. Earth is what we are. We come from de depths and the heights, from the trees and the water. When the men of human flesh came we retreated into our hills and woodlands, we became deeper and they did not recognize us. But the stones have long memories, yes. They tell our tales, they keep our imprint upon them. So when you kiss the rocks or whistle through our holes, we find a way to go between.’
Another lengthy silence. Briallen did not feel wiser. ‘Was that it?’
‘It was enough. Now you must go, or the time will swallow your own time. Go, go!’
‘Go, go!’ the other two exclaimed as well. She struggled up, but felt torn between shaking information out of them and fleeing. ‘But what must I do?’
‘Go home,’ came the reply. ‘Return, think, seek.’
‘Mend, patch, sing,’ the other continued,
‘Pray, kiss, risk everything for love. Go now!’
She turned, her head feeling like a basket of unwound wool.

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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
After he'd given Eiluned his orders, with the most important being the one concerning Briallen's gift, Tudwrig went back to his chambers. He loathed them; more now that there was no one to enter them unexpectedly and make the beast go away. There was no need to barricade the door right now, that's why he'd told Eiluned to only put the cross beam in front when she was done for the day. As it was, he needed what little sleep he could get. Perhaps the gods would take pity on him and grant him good dreams for once, instead of nightmares of violence and bloodshed. Though the times he was ripping Rufus apart in his sleep were rather enjoyable, they were also dark. And Tudwrig had grown afraid of the dark thoughts he started harbouring more often. It was like the curse was taking over his waking life bit by bit too, now. He suppressed a shudder and locked his door on the inside. His bed looked cold and uninviting, but he lay down nonetheless. The shutter of his window was still open and a steady breeze drifted around him. It helped to keep his head clear. He pulled the blankets over himself and lay staring at the ceiling. Apparently, being tired wasn't enough for sleep to come swiftly. He heaved a sigh and pressed his eyes shut.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
‘Gwenllian,’ Rhywallon said after days of traveling through the woods. The fear of being chased by Sulpicius’ men had only slowly worn off. ‘Tell me if you don’t want it, but I know only one place where you won’t have to look over your shoulder every passing minute.’ Because he had seen her. If fear of her husband had made her jumpy during their first journey together, this was nothing like it. He still felt it himself; muscles tensing and head spinning with a jolt of fright whenever he heard something that seemed sudden.
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
It took a while before the words sunk in. Gwenllian had been biting her bottom lip a lot the past days, lost in her own thoughts. There was the fear of being pursued by Romans, certainly, and also the terrible dread when thinking of what could be growing in her belly. Her period hadn’t come yet, and she’d started to get increasingly edgy because of it. Where she always thought Rhywallon to be the silent one, now she wasn’t saying much of anything herself either.
‘Oh. What place is this?’ She pressed her fist against her stomach a little harder. It wouldn’t do any good she knew, but it had become a habit over the past days.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
He watched her press against her stomach, as he had watched it the days before. She didn’t talk about it, and he had to admit that he felt too much of a coward to mention it himself. With lips pressed together, he took her arm to help her climb the steep slope of a hill. ‘There is a band of men with whom I’m affiliated. Bound together in purpose, so to speak. You will be safe there.’
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
Safe. Gwenllian didn't think she'd ever feel truly safe again. At least not in this world - not that venturing into the Otherworld would be such a good idea, either. But she nodded anyway. 'All right.' She didn't ask how long it would take them to get there, since time had lost meaning to her. There were only the times they walked, plodding on through forests and plains, past rivers and over hills, and the times they stopped to rest. It didn't much matter to her whether it was another two days or another two weeks of travel, though she was bone-weary. 'What purpose?'
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
He sighed. There was an unspoken rule that none of the brethren would speak of their whereabouts, nor, indeed, of their existence, to an outsider. But this was Gwenllian. And from the moment that he had seen her in the hands op Sulpicius, he felt that the rules had changed. Protocol – what mattered it now? Or dignity, the sense that he still stood apart from the rest, not falling back on his “brothers”? If there was truly brotherly blood between them, now was the time to ask their help. ‘To chase the Romans back behind our borders.’
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
She bit down on her already broken lip again. Now that she'd witnessed exactly how dangerous Romans could truly be, she really wanted to tell these men not to risk their lives. On the other hand, however, she really desired nothing more than those dreadful, wicked intruders gone from her lands. Dead, by preference. 'Oh. I see.' Gwenllian fell silent, directing her attention at the ground beneath her feet. What little grass there was between the rocks and dirt, was brown and broken. 'Are they of the Silures?' It was perhaps better to talk.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
‘Some of them are. Not everyone. Gwyddien and Elgued certainly are. They lead us,’ he added. ‘And they’re both good men, despite appearances.’
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